The Grass is Always Greener
by mayanpaw
Summary: Sequel to Birthday Wish. With Ed conivinced, Molly is given the chance that anyone would die for. Yet she forgot that the grass is always greener on the other side.
1. Through the Gate

Chapter 1

The soft pitter-patter of rain on my face alerted me to the fact that I was outside. My eyes flitted open and I stared up into the dark, rumbling clouds as the rain began to pelt me. _What happened? _My whole body was numb except for the feeling on the rain upon my skin. I racked my brain, trying desperately to remember something, anything. The only thing that I could remember was the sunny skies above me, and anything before that was a great span of white, ending at my basement and a beautiful blue light. It bothered me, the great white area, like something important had happened but I couldn't remember it. All I had now was the rain and the numb and the cold.

I felt the numbness start to spread upwards, starting with my feet, pushing the cold and the rain away. And with the numbness, the darkness came, starting at the edge of my world, and then quickly spiraling inwards, until the only light was just a speck in my world, and then it too was gone, and then the peaceful darkness was all I knew.

"Molly?" A soft voice called to me from nowhere. _Go away._ Yet the voice still persisted. "Molly!" It was louder and more urgent this time. I felt somebody grab my arm and my eyes flew open as I let out a bloodcurdling scream. It was as if my entire body was being ripped apart and each raindrop that hit my skin was a knife, or made out of acid. Yet the worst pain was focused on my right shoulder blade, where it felt like someone had taken a blowtorch to it.

"Molly, listen to me, are you ok?" Ed's voice sounded far away and weak through my unending shrieks of pain. Through the horrible pain however, I could make out that Ed was soaked, but not just from the rain. His hands were drenched in blood, so drenched in fact that the rain still hadn't washed the blood from his hands. _Where did all of that blood come from? _

"Shit Molly, I need to get you out of this rain." Ed's voice was calm and even, yet his eyes betrayed the fear that he was feeling. _What is happening? _Ed bent down and tried to pick me up when his hand brushed my shoulder and the fire quickly spread outwards until the pain became too much and the black reclaimed my world once again.

It was different this time though. The black began to fade into a stark white, with only the Gate breaking up the monotony. Ed bravely took a step forward…_Wait Ed?_ That is when I realized that I was remembering what had happened during the great white area that had been missing from my memory.

"_Take us to Risembool, take us home." Ed said in a commanding voice that didn't betray the nervousness that I'm sure he was feeling. He stood back and the Gate suddenly creaked open, revealing thousands of purple eyes staring back at us. Then, long black arms snaked out and wrapped around us, pulling us into the huge stone doors._

_I gasped. The arms felt horrible; cold and clammy like they were dead. Fighting the urge to rip them off I looked up at Ed, and while he looked uncomfortable he stood still, as if he knew that he had to put up with them in exchange for passage through. Suddenly, a bright light distracted me from Ed. I looked down at my arm to find that the arms had transformed themselves into child-like things with deep purple eyes. Alarmed, I looked up at Ed, who was being pulled along by the arms, like Al. Scared, I looked over at Mo, who was desperately trying to push the children off of her. I heard her yell out for help, yet Ed and Al had already moved out of sight._

_I felt something on my shoulder move, distracting me from Monique. One of the many "Gate Babies" had crawled onto my shoulder and was now nuzzling and sniffing it, as if it was trying to decide whether or not I would taste good. Scared, I went to move my arm and try to brush it off, yet I found that it was being held back by the others. I started to fight and struggle, yet the things held me still._

_I suddenly heard Monique let out the loudest scream that I had ever heard. I looked up to she her writhing in pain. Now thoroughly terrified, I started to fight harder, yet it was useless. Without warning, the thing on my shoulder sunk its teeth into my flesh and thousands of images rushed into my head, along with more information then I could possibly ever need. It felt like my head was going to explode. Nothing had ever hurt like this, including the bite from the little "blood sucker' that was still latched onto my shoulder. I let out a scream, yet nothing changed and the thing fiercely held on._

_Finally the Gate seemed to end and I found myself falling onto the ground in the middle of a large field. Thankfully a numbness spread over my body, like a soft layer of snow on the ground, driving off the pain. _I must be going into shock. _I thought as I stared up into the bright blue sky above me._

"Please, you have to help her." Ed's voice sounded far away, yet it did enough to bring me somewhat back into reality.

"Ed…" Someone's voice responded, and I felt myself being transferred into someone else's arms when, once again, someone touched the spot on my shoulder, causing the pain to flare up and the world to go black.

Chapter 2


	2. In the Dark

**AN: Hey everybody!!! Yea! I finally updated! Sorry about my update speed but I've been stuck in bed, sicker then a dog. But no worries, I haven't forgotten about FF. **

**LOL, I love all of the reviews that I got. I was seriously a happy camper. So thank you to, Damarikomu( Yea! My first reviewer for this story. LOL, yeah sorry I didn't make it clearer about what happened to Molly and Monique, but yeah, you'll find out more about how they're doing in this chappie), vampirelover17 (Sorry, hope that this is soon enough), Coolkat and RoooKie, Kuchaki, UnWrittenXD, xXxAerithStrifexXx, Marshpelt (LOL, sorry to dissapoint, but I didn't rip her arm off. *I just don't have the patience to give her automail and wait the required recovery time. After all, Molly is not Ed, so there is no way that she could recover in such a short amount of time.), Mizu10 (LOL, I guess you'll just have to read to see who it is. XD Glad that you think that it's awsome), L is 4 LOVE (Glad to see you love it. In fact I really was planning on continuing this ever since I started Birthday Wish. Hehe, I'm a sucker for sequels.), Thegirlinred93 (Your wish is my command! *goes off to type)**

**Once again, thank you to all of my reviewers. Enjoy!**

Chapter 2

When I groggily woke up, I realized that the world around me was black. _Huh, it must be night._ I suddenly realized the large, thick quilt covering me. _Where am I? _I rolled over onto my right and let out a hiss of pain the moment I put any weight on it. _What the… oh right, my shoulder. _I rolled over onto my left side and tenderly touched my gauze covered shoulder. Wincing in pain I examined the rest of my arm, trying to assess the damage. Other then the massive pain in my shoulder, the rest of my arm looked relatively unharmed. Sure my whole arm - all the way up to my shoulder - hurt, but it was more like a pain after you hit your funny bone or your arm falls asleep. Painful and annoying, yet relatively harmless. Satisfied that I wasn't going to die, I looked around the room, hopeful to find out where I was.

The dark room was somewhat illuminated by the moonlight that was streaming in through the window on the other side of my bed, which cast shadows throughout the room. My bed had been pushed against the wall and had a small bedside table on the other side of it, directly under the window. There was a small wooden chair that had been pushed into one of the corners and a small worn rug laying on top of an equally worn wooden floor. Looking even further throughout the room I noticed a small bed, identical to mine, which had been pushed into the corner opposite of mine. Throughout the darkness I was able to make out a large lump under the covers.

_Monique. _A wave of guilt and worry washed over me. _Is she ok? The last time I saw her, we were in the Gate and she was screaming bloody murder, which was right before that …well…that thing bit me. _I looked at her slowly breathing form and I allowed a small amount of relief to ease some of the worry I felt. _She's alive, I didn't think that she would've…survived. _Yet I did not allow the relief ebb away at any of the guilt that I felt. _This is all my fault, Monique never wanted to come. This was all my idea. God, if she doesn't make it or is crippled or worse…well I just don't know what I'd do. If I hadn't suggested it, then we wouldn't have had to go through this. And if I'd just listened to Ed…_

_Ed. _My mind stuck on the thought. _Is he ok? Is Al ok? Oh God, Ed's going to kill me if Al is hurt._

The door started to creak open, which broke me from my thoughts. A beam of light darted in through the open door, falling onto my bed. A figure, whose face I couldn't see, started to walk into the room.

"Oh, you're awake?" A light voice asked softly. It took me a minute to realize where I had heard it from, but once I figured it out, I nearly freaked out.

"Winry!?!" I gasped.

"You know me?" She asked softly as she sat down on the edge of my bed.

_Oh crap, what has Ed told her? _"Umm, well sort of. Ed talks about you all the time, so I feel like I know you."

A light blush crept over her face and she turned away, clearly embarrassed. "That Ed…" She mumbled off. I took that moment to study her face. She had matured since the movie, that much was clearly evident. She looked much wiser, less likely to fly off the handle at any moment. However her eyes looked very distant and haunted, like she was about to burst into tears at any moment.

"Umm, speaking of Ed, is he ok?" I blurted out, unable to wait any longer.

She looked up at me in surprise. "Of course he is! He carried you all the way here. Don't you remember?"

"Umm yeah, sort of. Everything's still kind of blurry." I said, trying to ignore the massive headache that formed every time I thought about the past few hours.

She gave me a cautious look before going on. "Anyways, I'm here to check out your shoulder. How does it feel?"

I touched my shoulder lightly and automatically winced. "It hurts like hell. Do you know what happened to it?"

"No, I was sort of hoping that you could tell me. When Ed showed up at my doorstep, you were bleeding so badly that I actually thought that we were going to loose you. In fact, the bleeding was so bad that I just had to put the bandage on. Granny is going to kill me when she finds out that I didn't disinfect the area first, but it was bleeding so bad that I had to put the pressure on."

"And…and what about Monique?" I asked quietly.

Sensing that I was worried she lowered her voice. "Molly, if I thought you were bad, there was nothing that could've prepared me for her. I'm not gonna lie, I didn't think she was going to make it, especially with a wound like that on her back. I don't even know how that's going to affect her walking. But she's strong. She made it through whatever it is that you guys went through, and I think that she's going to make it through this."

I looked over at Monique and allowed the guilt to overwhelm me. _If she doesn't walk again…Oh God! What have I done?! _

"Anyways, I was just coming in to check the dressings. Hopefully I'll be able to clean the area too. Is that ok with you?" She asked, her tone much happier then it had been just seconds ago.

"Yeah…" I muttered despondently. I moved over to the side of the bed as she helped me get the bandages off.

"I'm sorry about your shirt." She said. "Even with alchemy I don't think that you'll be able to get that blood out." I looked down at my white shirt that was completely dyed red and I figured that she was right. "Don't worry. I'm sure I have something that will work just fine." I watched as the last of the bloody bandages fell off of my back and onto the bed.

"Ok, so I'm just going to clean it off, so it's going to sting a little, ok?" Winry said, doing a very good imitation of a doctor's voice. All of a sudden, my world burst into large white spots as she thrust the rag onto my shoulder. I let out a loud hiss, doing my best to keep from screaming, as I doubled over.

"Are you ok?" Winry's voice sounded muffled and far away, yet I concentrated on it, determined to stay conscious.

"Th…that hurt a lot more then just a…a little sting." I managed to gasp out in between waves of pain.

I waited for the pain to dull a bit before I was able to look back over to her, whose face was clearly worried. "I'm sorry." She said, sounding completely genuine. "But we have to clean it. It'll only be a hundred times worse if we let it get infected." I nodded, knowing that she was completely right. I then turned around and braced myself for the pain that was coming.

After an eternity of pure torture, Winry let out a small gasp and dropped the rag in shock. "Wh…what is it?" I gasped out, completely ecstatic about her sudden stop.

"N…nothing. It's absolutely nothing. I just need to go show Ed something. You just stay here, ok?" She said in such a sickeningly sweet voice that I automatically knew that something was wrong. Before I could confront her, she had run out the door slamming it behind her, leaving me in the dark.

**AN: Yes it is shorter then I'd like, but the next scene that I'm trying on tackling is very long and deserves its own chapter. Plus this ending adds keeps you guessing for just a little longer. *insert evil smile here* **


	3. The Mark

**AN: Hey everybody! I have a small announcement about my answering reviews (for those of you who haven't got the e-mail?) Due to the large amounts of reviews (it's every authors dream to say that) I'm going to be responding to all reviews using the reply thing, however I'm definatly going to keep responding to everyone who favorites or watches my story.**

**So thank you to Damarikomu, Mizu10, Marshpelt, MatsuriHfan, Seengot, Corn-dono, xXImmortalsxDiceXx, tig tig kitten, Alice Baily, Dancing Spirit, Chrimson fox, and YuuYuu-chan.**

**So without further delay, enjoy!**

Chapter 3

I sat in the dark as I listened to Winry run down the stairs. Thanks to both of the facts that I had sensitive hearing and that the entire house was made of rickety old wooden floorboards, I was able to make out each of her steps. I heard her run, but then her footsteps began to suddenly slow down, as if she were hesitating. I strained to make out the general muffled murmuring that was going on downstairs.

Despite the fact that I couldn't make out who was talking, or who was saying what, I was able to make a pretty good guess. First of all, there was only one small female voice. Her voice was harder to make out then the others, meaning that it had to be a pretty nervous Winry who was talking. The other two voices were pretty hard to figure out. They were both young male, which meant that it had to be Ed and Al. Unfortunately the floor and walls in between us was doing a pretty good job of making it nearly impossible to tell the two voices apart from each other.

The voices were now starting to get louder and louder, as if they were yelling. I began to hear footsteps but then they suddenly stopped. The voices started talking again, only much quieter this time. Finally they stopped talking and someone started to walk back up the stairs, only a lot quieter this time. The footsteps paused outside my room and the silence was soon broken by a knock on the door.

"Molly?" Ed's voice sounded unsure as he softly called out my name.

"Come on in." I said. The door creaked open, softly bathing the room in the glow from the hall outside.

"Do you want me to turn off the lights?" Ed said softly.

I shook my head. "No, I really don't want to wake up Mo. I think that she needs as much sleep as she can get." Ed nodded and walked over to my half of the room where he sat down on the edge of my bed. An awkward silence came over the room as each of us tried to figure out what to say.

Ed was the first to break the silence. "Winry told me about your shoulder. I need to see if it is what I think it is." He said in a soft, almost embarrassed voice.

"Sure." I replied, just as curious as him to see what had caused Winry to react the way that she had. I turned, facing my back to him. I then lifted up my hair and moved it in front of my shoulders, so that the wound on my shoulder was exposed.

Ed let out an audible gasp. Out of the corner of my eyes I could see him trying to keep from touching the spot. "It's ok." I nodded, giving him permission. Realizing what I meant, Ed gingerly touched my shoulder. Blinding pain lit up my sight, and I let out a hiss of pain.

Ed quickly removed his hand as I hissed out, "So what is it?"

Ed looked down in disbelief, talking to himself more then anything. "It…it's not possible. But…"

"Ed." I said firmly, turning to face him. "Tell me what is so bad that both you and Winry are freaking out."

"See for yourself." He said as he handed me two hand mirrors. Angling the mirrors the best that I could, I finally located the wound when I let out a gasp. There on my shoulder was the Flamel's Crest.

I immediately dropped the mirrors, knowing that I would no longer need them. The image of the bright red snake wrapped around the cross would forever be burned into my mind.

"What happened?" Ed asked softly. In a daze I told him everything that happened to me in the Gate. When I finished I looked up at Ed, whose face was hidden by his hair. Unable to read his expression I was surprised when he said, "You lied to me."

"What do you mean?" I asked in confusion.

"You told me that everything would be ok. And I trusted you. I went against my better judgment and did the transmutation anyway, and now look at both of you." Ed's voice was starting to rise now, filled with anger. "You can barely move your arm, you're in so much pain and Monique…I don't even know if she's going to wake up, much less be able to walk."

"Don't you think I know that?!" I yelled back at him, tears obstructing my vision. "Don't you think that I know that she's hurt and it's all my fault?!"

"Your fault?" Ed interrupted me. "No. It was your idea, but you weren't the one who wrote the circle on the floor, you weren't the one who activated it. So no. It's not your fault. It's mine." An awkward silence spread over the room after his outburst. _You're wrong Ed. It is my fault. _

"So…ummm." I started lamely, trying to break the silence. "What does the wound on my shoulder mean. I mean, I realize that it means that I've seen the Gate, but what else?"

Ed sighed. "I don't know. Usually anyone who has that mark can also do alchemy without a circle, but since you haven't been able to do alchemy to start off with, I'm not sure what to tell you."

I paused. "Wait a minute. You can do alchemy without a circle, and you've very obviously seen the Gate, then shouldn't you have a mark too?"

Ed halted, his face draining of all color. "Yes, yes in fact I do have a mark." I was about to ask where when he went on answering the question for me. "I have it on my top right shoulder. The automail had to be put on top of it in order to provide a stable base for the port. I honestly think that it was one of the most painful parts of the operation. It hurt so bad just to have anything touch that thing, much less to have metal screwed on top of it."

I automatically winced, just remembering the pain that I had went through when Winry had been cleaning off the wound. There was no way that I could imagine the agony that Ed went through if he had to have his automail put on top of his scar. "And what about Al?" I asked, almost afraid to know the answer.

"I think that you already know the answer to that one." Ed replied.

"I do?" I asked, trying to remember anything.

"Yeah, it's on the same spot now as it was on the armor." A quick glance at my confused face prompted him to continue. "His upper left hand shoulder."

"Oh." I said, suddenly feeling very stupid.

Ed laughed at my bewildered expression. "I'd better go tell Winry that you're ok. She's probably dieing to know what happened, and besides, she has food and some fresh clothes. I have a feeling you're hungry, right?"

"Starving." I answered straight away.

"Plus I have a feeling that you'd like a change of clothes. You look like I do after the majority of my battles." Ed said with a smirk.

"Hey! That is not completely true." I said. I paused for a moment. "Hey Ed."

"Hmm?"

"What should I tell Winry? You know, about who I am and where I come from?"

Ed paused. "Tell her the truth. I trust her, you know that much already. I only hide things from her to keep her safe. I see no reason why telling her where you are from is going to put her in danger. Although I wouldn't go around Central advertising it. I just think that there's no reason to lie to her." Ed stood up and made his way over to the door where he stopped and turned around. "Good night Molly." He said with a small little wave.

"'Night Ed."

I sat in the now dark room as I listened to the sounds of the house around me. Downstairs I could hear Ed talking to Winry, soon followed by the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

"Knock knock." A familiar voice said through the wood of the door.

I smiled. "Hey Winry, come on in." The door was pushed open as the blond walked in carrying a tray with a lump of fabric and a steaming bowl.

"I brought you some chicken noodle soup. It's easy on the stomach, but it still tastes just fine." She said as she handed me the bowl.

"Thanks." I said as I accepted it, just a little miffed that it wasn't the stew that had been so famous all throughout the series.

"I also brought you one of my tank tops. I hope it fits." She said, handing me a dark red cammie that in the dark looked almost black. I took it from her, grateful for a change of clothes. A silence filled the room as I ate the soup.

"I'm sorry for freaking out on you earlier." Winry said quietly.

"Nah, it's no big problem." I said as I tried to wave it off between gulps of soup.

"No! It is a problem." She insisted. "I probably scarred you half to death by just leaving you to wonder what was going on. It's just… it's just that… it was like it was happening all over again. Ed shows up on my doorstep out of the middle of nowhere after going missing for 2 years -with the exception of one day where he manages to save the world from massive flying machines- carrying a girl who is basically bleeding to death. Then when this mystery girl finally wakes up, I come to find out that she has the same mark as Ed and Al and Izumi. I'm not stupid. The only way that you can get that mark is by performing a human transmutation. So I need to know, what happened?" She was nearly shouting now, and fearing that she might wake up Mo, I tried to calm her down.

"Winry…winry, it's ok." Winry took a few deep breaths, starting to calm down. "So now, how much did Ed tell you?" I asked.

"Not much," she admitted, " he was too busy freaking out about you two to tell me anything that could be considered remotely useful."

"Ok, so do you know where Ed was during those 2 years when Al was missing his memories?" I asked, trying to figure out how much I was going to have to tell her.

"No, not really. I only saw him come out of that weird circle thing in the underground city, where he promptly jumped back into after he saved Central."

"Ok, so I have a pretty good idea now. Ok, so that weird circle thing in the underground city was a type of the Gate, linking 1920's Germany to Amestis - which is where Ed had been sent to when he brought back Al. So those flying machines were piloted by members of the Thule Society, a fanatical faction of the Nazi party - a political party in Germany which ended up committing some of the worst cases of human rights violations in modern history, and they also started off World War 2. Once Ed had stopped Dietlinde Eckhart - the leader of the Thule Society - Ed steered the ship back in through the Gate and back into Germany in order to break down the Gate so Thule or anyone else couldn't enter and attack again. However, Al jumped in at the last minute making sure that he would stay with his brother. Ed and Al then decided that since they were now apart of Germany and its world, that they should start taking responsibility for it, which meant tracking down a bomb that a scientist from this side of the Gate had sent through. Unfortunately, before they could start tracking it down, members of the now destroyed Thule Society and the severely weakened Nazi party began tracking them down, forcing them to flee."

"How do you know all of this?" Winry asked, interrupting my attempt to sum up the last scenes of the movie.

"I'm getting there." I said, waving her off. "Anyways, they were eventually cornered, and in a last ditch effort to loose them, they summoned up the Gate using this new idea that Ed will have to explain to you. Unfortunately things didn't go exactly as planned, 'cause they woke up in Colorado in 2008." I continued on explaining, describing everything that had happened (minus the concert, of course). When I ended Winry looked at me in pure shock.

"Wow." Was all that she was able to whisper out.

**AN: Hope you enjoyed my little attempt to explain everything, which I'm sure I missed something while explaining but hey, I was doing it all off the top of my head. Oh by the way, has anyone seen the new FMA season? I loved it!! Especially in the second episode where Winry and Risa talk. (My favorite scene of all) Well, by for now. **

**~ Mayanpaw**


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